


Snow Song

by ThingsThatRuinedMyLife



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Blood, M/M, Mental Instability, Schizophrenia, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 18:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5597011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThingsThatRuinedMyLife/pseuds/ThingsThatRuinedMyLife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was following the pack,<br/>all swallowed in their coats.<br/>With scarves of red tied 'round their throats.<br/>To keep their little heads from falling in the snow,<br/>and I turned 'round and there you go.<br/>And Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my wonderful beta Piper. Without her support and proof reading skills this wouldn't exist. She also did the wonderful art above just for this, I'm so glad my work can inspire such beautiful art. Thank you Piper and to everyone else who has ever supported my writing.

Damp navy blue wool mittens clung to my hands turned pink from the cold. I thrust them in my pockets for warmth. My boots made prints in the slush on the pavement and I watched as puffs of air drifted off into the early winter morning air. Winters fingers brushed against my cheeks and turned them rosy red, my pale complexion making it even more obvious. Fog clung to the Earth's surface and it was almost humid enough to feel the slightest bit of warmth.

I had been walking since dawn, unable to shake the nightmares that plagued my head in my sleep ever since I was a child. I looked up from my boots and focused on anything other than the dampness of my socks. I looked through the fog and saw a black hooded figure step off the pavement and into the woods. Curiosity spiked in my brain and I followed the figure, not caring about wherever I was previously headed.

I followed the stranger onto a trail where the fog had lifted. Gentle sun beams poured in through the bare limbs of the trees overhead, golden specks of dust danced in them as they descended elegantly onto the ivory snow beneath us. Some had melted away, revealing the cold earth below. The overcast that was quickly overshadowing the sun's rays was sure to change that.

I stepped over branches and twigs that had scattered there from the storm which had ravaged this sleepy town in the dead of night. We crossed a stream and even across a clearing where I thought surely the figure would finally stop walking.

The stranger stopped finally as we neared the edge of the woods to the neighboring town. The figure spun around and I saw a flash of red, it was a scarf tied around his throat up to his nose. I thought for sure he would yell at me to stop following him but he just he stood there, all swallowed in his coat and smiled. He didn't say a word as he took off running, cutting across the street into yet again more woods.

"Wait!" I called after the boy, my chest heaving as I struggled to keep going. My lungs stung from the cold air continuously filtering in and out of my nostrils. Tree branches reached out and grabbed at me from either side and I struggled to keep up. I wasn't nearly as swift as the man ahead of me.

He laughed manically as he kept running. Not a single word was uttered from his pink starburst lips.

His coat caught on a branch and he tumbled to the ground, laughter slowly fading into sobs.

I knelt down to remove his scarf and he flinched, glaring at me through tear filled eyes. Fear hung heavy in his gaze and he looked as if he was an animal backed against a wall.

"I just want to help." I said trying to remove his scarf once more, my fingers just barely brushing against the soft red fabric. He growled at me and tried to stand. His boot slipped on the icy ground, kicking up slush as he did so. He fell back against the thick bark of the tree behind him. Cotton tufts fell from the ripped seam of his coat and disappeared into the snow.

I raised my hands up showing him I meant no harm. We made eye contact and I looked deep into his eyes, wordlessly trying to surrender. The gold specks from before seemed to swim in the deep brown irises. He was entrancing and I fell under his spell. A horrendous smile fell across his chapped lips as two brown curls slipped out from under his hood, covering the boy's eyes thus breaking my trance.

He scrambled up and ran off yet again. I did not follow him.  

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

I'm slipping faster, and farther, and deeper. Darkness creeps into sight and blurs my vision. My heart is hammering, my breaths are short and ragged. The branches with their long finger-like thorns are scratching at my delicate paper skin. I'm back on the empty trail. My stomach is lurching and my chest is constricting. I can't breathe.  My hands fly up towards my chest and I fall to the ground, my jeans now soaking wet at the knee. My vision goes as white as the snow around me. Everything's blurry, I feel faint. I can't get enough air into my lungs, it burns fiercely with the heat of a fire igniting deep within my chest with each exhalation.

I keel over and cry out to the nothingness all around me. My palms are stinging and it's not from the cold. I cannot feel the cold of the snow anymore. Instead only feel the itch of restlessness traveling up my spine like spiders.

I remove my hand from the snow beneath me. The white had turned red like strawberries, my stomach is churning at the sight. I feel as though I'm going to vomit. 

I'm trying to cry out for somebody to save me from this hell. Suddenly the panic swirling up my spine and curling in my stomach subsides. The air around me is stagnant and a pair of boots are coming into view. The boots stomped out the pain and fear, they leave me empty and hollow.

It's as if somebody had scooped out my insides and carelessly thrown them into the snow banks. My head was so light I feel as though it could fall off into the snow.

I look up and try to see the face that belongs to those boots. The hood is blocking out his features but his brown eyed gaze cuts through the darkness like a blade. The blood from my hands trickles down the hill and panic begins to resurface once again.

"Help me!" I'm screaming at him,

but all he did was smile.

I sat up with my heart pounding in my ears like a drum. My blankets no longer providing a source of warmth and protection but were slowly becoming a prison. I struggled to escape them and ran into the kitchen where my boots and coat hung still damp from the day before. My bare feet padded across the cold tiles and I shivered at the sudden contact.

I fumbled with the sleeves of my coat and quickly slipped into my boots, nearly tripping out the door as I did so. I ran out the door and onto the deserted streets, the cold still lingering from the night into early morning. It was in the hours just before the sun touched the land with all it's creatures and chased away the horror gripped tight in midnight's hands.

I ran to the woods and didn't look back. I ran until I got to the next town over and I kept going. The stranger and I's footprints still visible even with the freshly fallen snow. I slipped on the ice hiding just beneath the powdery surface but kept going forward, unable to face my own insanity.

I ran past the tree where the boy had been curled against, feral and afraid. I ran towards the sun streaking through the trees overhead. I wanted to touch the dawn, I wanted to sing with the birds and hum with the stream. I wanted to fear the night no longer and take comfort in the morning's embrace as it wakes everyone else in the land with it.

I stopped at a cliff overlooking the mountains that seemed to be painted onto the horizon. The hills and fields sketched, their wispy outline melting into the orange water color sunrise. I stood frozen still as I stared at the boy sat in the very same snow that was I up to my ankles in. His coat no longer ripped and his red scarf still wrapped around his throat.

He didn't speak as I walked to him. I sat myself down next to him, uncaring of the cold I still had yet to feel. The absence of the frost stinging my soft cheeks seemed off putting. I of course, didn't think about it. I didn't want to. I simply sat in peace and serenity, completely at ease. Something I hadn't experienced in a long time.

"Who are you?" I asked, there was no fear lingering behind my words.

He turned to me, staring deep into my almost translucent blue eyes. He seemed to be looking somewhere farther than my very existence, somewhere off in an other worldly sense. To a celestial kingdom not perceivable to any other human's mind but his. The luminosity deep seated in his gaze gave it away.

Or maybe that's not true, maybe the boy really was only seeing me.

He brought his hand to my cheek and I thought of the warmth from it that I couldn't feel. It was as if I carried the empty hollowed out feeling from the nightmare into the daylight, tainting it's brilliance. He smiled yet again and I smiled with him.

Was I going insane? Who is he? Why is he in the woods? Why was he running? Why...

Questions swarmed my mind but none of them seemed like they needed answering. Not right at this minute. At this moment all I needed was the calm he brought to the storm. His mouth said nothing, but his presence told me a thousand stories, more than words could ever describe. Each tale as significant as the last. I listened, not with my ears but with my heart. It was truly incredible how interconnected all of us humans are.

With all of our differences we manage to see with our sight, we are all so blind to what truly lies beneath the image we put forth. I didn't know the boy who clutched my hand so tightly, telling me all of these things with his heart and soul.

I didn't know where he was from or what he name was. All I knew is that I could come and sit without the shame or fear we bring with us anymore. I could sit on the cliff with the painted skies and sketched hillsides and feel whole with the universe as we were meant to be.

It's foolish and profound, but isn't that the point? When did we stop thinking and just started simply doing? When did we stop trying get know one another and began to keep only to ourselves? I'm not sure, but I knew I was determined to truly live once again, even just for a little while among the company of the silent boy and all of his stories.  
  


Is it foolish and profound to start believing in soulmates? I suppose it is. That thought alone was enough to make me smile. 


	3. Chapter 3

I no longer have nightmares. In fact I don't dream at all anymore. A part of me thinks I may have died. Another part of me thinks that if I had, I wouldn't care so much anymore.

I no longer feel content living amongst the shadows of my home. It's too small and every part of me wants to be back in the snow on the cliff. Every time the image of the boy sitting beside me with his hands on my cheek flashes through my mind I shiver. If I close my eyes sometimes I can pretend I'm still there.

I knew I couldn't continue to see him. No sane person in the world would ever want to sit beside a stranger on a hill and stare until the sun touched the skies. No sane person could ever withstand the cold for that long. No person in their right mind would follow a strange man into the woods nevermind actually sit down and _stay._

I _wasn't_ in my right mind. I _wasn't sane._ Maybe I would just have to accept that.   
  


I stared at the document on my computer and thought absently, _"Maybe insanity lies beneath the surface of all of us, but we are all too afraid to admit it. Maybe for once_ _I_ _am the brave one,_ _I_ _am the hero. Could there be a possibility that I am not the underdog everyone once thought me to be?"_

A large figure appearing in the entrance to the cubical strapped me back into reality at full force.

My boss stood before me, an angry expression plastered onto his chubby features.

"I expected this to be done at the end of the day. Everyone has left and look what you're stuck doing after hours." He said gesticulating towards my screen.

I looked my boss up and down. His short stout frame spilled from his belt which was holding up his khakis. His light blue button up missing was one button and I didn't realize how much that bothered me until right this minute.

He ran his hand across his shiny, almost bald head and sighed. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall of the cubicle.

"We will have to let you go sooner or later if you continue like this. Especially after last week's, _incident_."

_I sprung up from my office chair and sent it flying out of my cubicle. My screams filled the fourth floor and came pouring out from the windows._

_"He's delirious sir!"_

_"He can't even hear us!"_

_"Does he know where he is?"_

_"I don't even think he knows he's awake."_

I felt a swell of pain that didn't belong to me deep within my heart. Those memories didn't feel like mine, but they were so vivid they must be. Is this what crazy feels like?

  
"Sir, I'm really sorry but I don't remember what you're talking about. What incident.?"

My boss saw rolled his eyes and huffed, "I don't care if you think that wasn't your fault. This needs to get done, without incidents like that.

I cocked my head in confusion. Who was he talking to? Why wasn't he answering me. It was as if I was invisible.

I always hated the way bosses treated their employees.

A sharp ache in my skull began to form and I struggled to put myself in the place of the memories. Beside those bits and pieces it was all really a blur. It felt as if my brain was buffering and I was only getting bits and pieces of the scene. I replayed the few memories over and over, struggling to fit them together to make some sense. How was I supposed to do that when these images weren't even mine to remember.

I had apparently fallen asleep at my desk after working overtime. This was in attempt to make up for the day I had skipped previously due to a sickness, which my boss used quotation marks as if to say he didn't truly believe it. He said that I was still conscious but I seemed distant. As if I was daydreaming.

I felt the peril of the man in the memory, it felt displaced. As if I was merely emphasizing with him and not truly experiencing it.

In the memory I felt like I was trapped within myself and only I could hear my cries for help. That everyone else just saw a crazy man having a meltdown, they couldn't seeing the dying boy on the inside who was suffocating himself with his own hands.

The feeling didn't belong to me. I wasn't the man they claimed me to be. I don't even remember how I got to work here in the first place.

_I pulled my hands around my throat and felt my face turn a million shades of violet._

"If this continues any longer we're going to have to let you go." He said, voice almost lost with those pounding in my head.

_"Please stop this! You're here in the office remember? Nobody's hurting you!"_

I nodded my head I closed my eyes, unable to meet his.

" Look, you're a nice guy and I'd hate to have to let you go so get to work alright?"

I turned my stare back to the screen, willing the memories to fade. I didn't want to have to pretend they were mine any longer. I felt my happiness fall in tatters as I realized I would never feel like me. I didn't know who I was and it wasn't a matter of not knowing what I liked or what I wanted to be. I couldn't remember a single detail about myself. I wasn't anybody, maybe I didn't even exist.

I looked past the screen to fall into another existential daze when I saw a figure at the window. I knew what I saw was impossible. It was inconceivable and I knew somewhere deep inside that it wasn't real.

Something in me stirred and that familiar smile that flashed back at me through the glass proved that it was real.

My heart surged and I jumped from my desk, grabbing my coat and leaving my past life behind. I felt no reason to sit there and pretend to know who I was, or to pretend to be of sound mind like the rest of my coworkers.

I wasn't crazy, this was real. It had to be. Nobody could simply imagine this pure feeling of vivacity when you look at somebody. How true and real he makes me feel. This boy wasn't a figment of my imagination, even if my coworkers behind me couldn't see him, I could.

That's all that seemed to matter with me these days.

I felt whole when I was in the boys company. As if my heart had been split in two and he had the other half. That's cheesy and ridiculous and absurd but it was nonetheless, true.

Even if it's impossible for somebody to reach that window on the fourth floor, I don't think I could think about it that way. I don't think I have enough sanity left within me to understand how preposterous it is.

I burst out of the double doors and searched around the vacant parking lot for my new companion. I felt my heart plummet when he was nowhere to be found. My gaze fell to the branches by the woods swaying and I felt my feet begin to move, a smile quickly falling in place once more.  
  


I followed the red blur that stood out against the white of the forest, knowing it was him. I sprinted and felt as all of my fears and doubts melt with the snow as the sun beams danced upon it.

I felt carefree.

Can you blame me for using such a daft word? I was happy for once! My brain trapped in pure child-like bliss.

_Carefree,_ I chuckled as I thought of how ridiculous I was being. How profoundly cliche is the word carefree?! I mean, it's almost laughable really.

"I should have done this ages ago!" I called, and I knew he was smiling.

We came out to a clearing and he stopped. I put my head in between my knees to catch my breath.

"What are we doing?" I asked, and the boy answered by cautiously walking out to the only spot in the whole woods where the snow was nearly gone. He pushed some of it away with his bare hands and I walked forward to help him. Despite the strange warmth of the winter afternoon he still had his scarf pushed up to his nose.

He pulled his hands away all pink and covered with fresh dirt, and he revealed a small blade of grass just barely protruding from the ground.

"It's beautiful." I said and he smiled. His scarf fell a bit and revealed a dimple on the side of his cheek. I slowly reached out to touch it and he let me. My finger brushed across it and he giggled. I saw blush start to creep across his cheeks and I tried to pull the scarf away to reveal more. I felt as if maybe we had instilled a certain trust in each other, and maybe he was willing to give this piece of him away to me.

The atmosphere quickly changed and he snapped. His eyes widened with fear and I backed away, not wanted to cause him any more discomfort.

"I-I'm sorry. I just wanted to see your whole face." He shook his head frantically and I nodded. He took a moment to calm down and started to walk back to the parking lot.

"No, Don't go!" I shouted after him but he had already left. I ran back toward the trail but strangely enough he was nowhere in sight.

"Please come back." I said. Sadness came in waves to replace joy and my hands fell to my sides as if his absence was weighing them down.

"Please don't leave." I whispered to nobody but myself.   


	4. Chapter 4

Lips meet in the swell of music to beat of two hearts entwined. Hands tangled in knots of hair, love swings heavy our heads.

It was magical and every part of me came alive. I became one with him that morning, on the cliff hanging over the edge of the world.

I lay there staring up at my ceiling thinking about it. I could still hear the trees blowing their great wooden limbs in the breeze. It was as if they were concealing us. Our own little secret kept safe within their leaves.

I grew restless and I needed to go see him once more. I needed to bury myself in his arms and swim in his love.

I haven't slept in days but I've never felt more awake in my entire time of living. It's not as if I can remember much of it anyways. Maybe this is the only thing worth remembering.

I ran through the thick snow that emptied down from the midnight sky and ran to him. I ran to the man whom I had taken the liberty of naming Daniel, or Dan for short. He'd like Dan better I think.

I dashed through the vacant streets towards the trail I'd come to know so well. I needed to tell Dan I loved him. I'd never known such urgency in my life but here it was, and I was desperate to act on it.

I was tired of existing, I wanted to live.

My mitten covered hands were raised above my head as I tried to see through the whirlwind of snow covering up everything in sight. My bones suddenly heavy and I felt exhaustion begin to take hold.

"No, I need you Dan!" I cried, although I could only scream in agony because I had fallen to the soft ground before the words ever left my lips.

I tried to get up but my limbs lay limp underneath the cold blanket of winter's touch. I lay there like a wounded animal. All the life had been sucked out of me and I felt myself giving up. What little energy I did have was slowly being drained by the cold.

 

I lifted my head up and saw the strawberry red from my nightmares glaring against the white snow. How dare it be so bold? How dare it mock me like this? I watched as it pooled around my head and raced down the sloping trail. I needed Dan, he could help.

My thoughts began racing and my heart caught in my throat as I began to realize something, my nightmare was no longer just in my head.

I was absolutely mad, there's no other explanation. Nightmares can't be real, that's not something that happens.

A sob tore through my frozen lips and I called out for somebody, anybody who would bother saving a wretch like me.

"Where are you!" I screamed at nobody.

My throat was raw from the frigid air and my constant screams. I had nothing left to give, I was dying.

The snow softly falling around me began to turn my vision white. I wanted to give up. I wanted to give in to this, whatever this was. I think it was death.

The world around me became bleary with exhaustion as I continuously heaved air into my lungs, but never enough. A sudden burst of air hit me like a blow to the stomach, it was all too much too fast. I wasn't processing what was around me and my thoughts surged with confusion.

The crimson trail of mockery traveled down the hill and stopped at a pair of familiar boots. I focused my gaze on them as they got closer and I felt a sliver of hope rise within my rotting self.

"Dan." I croaked through ice cold lips. I think I was crying, but I couldn't feel the tears. All I could feel was the gushing river of sadness coursing through my veins.

Panic bubbled up in my throat as I choked on nothing.

"Help." I sobbed but all Dan did was stand there, he didn't even bend down to breathe his air from his lungs to mine. Why was he so selfish? I thought we loved each other! Was I so stupid to think such foolish things? Soulmates are not real, I don't even know the man who stood before me. He wasn't even real, and I should have cared about that. I should never have fallen for something so arbitrary.

"What's happening to me?" I whimpered, grabbing chunks of my hair and pulling on them. A dull ache formed at my temple and I shut my eyes, hoping to wake up from this nightmare I seem to be trapped in.

He stepped closer and that grin, oh that horrid grin spread wide across his face. I only know it did because I could feel his laughter in my throat. I could feel his happiness, the sick joy he felt watching me choke to death in the snow.

"Why won't you help me, my love?" I was pleading. I knew I should have never been so vacuous.

Dan was never here to save me, he was here to watch me die.

Dan knelt before me and put his hands colored in pink on my shoulders. I shivered, trapped in winters unforgiving grasp. Dan placed his coat on my shoulders and I pulled it closer to my body. I pined for the days when I couldn't feel the cold. When the thought hadn't even crossed my mind that I could be freezing to death.

He lowered his face towards mine and kissed me. I couldn't feel his lips and I wasn't sure if it was because of the cold, or because of death.

I noticed tears brimming in his eyes and he pulled me up, hands clinging to my back in anguish. He held me tight as the storm ravaged the forest that had kept us safe for so long. The trees bending wildly from the force of the wind. The snow fell faster and faster, the delicate snowflakes swirling around us. It was as if we were trapped in a snow globe with a child's overenthusiastic hands shaking us back and forth.

I trembled in Dan's hold and buried my nose in his scarf. I clawed at his shirt with a vice like grip, still trying to fight for warmth, for a breath of life. Dan wouldn't give me any, instead he made me colder.

I could almost feel my heart freezing solid as I realized he didn't love me, or maybe my heart was just stopping. Is death always so cold?

Dan stepped away and laid me gently back into my coffin built of snow. My eyes followed the strawberry red trail towards Dan who began to walk away. His boots leaving heavy imprints on the earth's surface beneath him.

I let myself watch him go along with my heart and soul.

Everything slowed to a dull roar as I lay there, beaten and broken by winters misery.

Just before he left me to die there, he turned his head and smiled. I watched helplessly as he unfurled his scarf from his neck. A red line that faintly resembled a scar ran around the delicate surface of his skin.

A moment before I sucked my last breath of life in this world, his head tumbled into the white of the snow. Dead brown eyes staring back into my now lifeless ones.

Then the snow slowly faded into nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

I sat with him, grieving for a love I would have to lose. I wish I could have told him how he was different from the others.

That I'm not insane, I'm not mental. Neither is he.

I hear hundreds of voices everyday but his voice was real. I could hear his volume riveting through my ears. It was better than any sweet tune sung from the swallows in the trees or hummed at my bedside by my mother. He stood out amongst the others. I could touch him, I could feel his heart beating.

Now it beat frantically against mine, fighting for life. Surely nothing imaginary could have a heart that strong. It felt as though a thousand wings were beating from inside his chest. I wish I could have learned each and every one, the way we were supposed to before he was so cruelly ripped from my arms.

The other voices are just whispers scraping at the back of my brain. They're chipping away at my thoughts, collecting them for themselves one by one. I hated those voices, but I would never hate his.

He didn't deserve a life with me. Even if nobody else could see him like I could, I still wanted so badly to love him properly. I wanted to give him everything I had. All I could give him was my smile and hope that it would forever be enough. For him it always was, he was never greedy.

Day after day I wanted to reveal to him who I was. That I was his true love and that soulmates was a silly concept but we just might be destined to be together.

Sometimes our dreams would collide. It was the only time I could truly be with him fully and completely. On my worst days the voices would consume me and infect his thoughts. They would turn those dreams into nightmares, and it was always my fault.

I would often be the villain in those nightmares. They would twist my words into hate and melt my actions into violence. Those nightmares were the worst kind for the both of us.

He would have forever been plagued by my demons had we not parted. Those should have only ever remained _mine_ and nobody should have had to feel the weight of them, especially him.

When I kissed him I knew we couldn't go on. This had gone to far I knew it, I fucking knew it.

I rocked back and forth and cried into his shoulders.

"We've found him." Several voices over head called out in far away shouts. I felt strong hands grabbing me by the arms and I let go, I gave up and let them win for a moment. A life without him simply just isn't worth fighting for.

I smiled as they dragged me away, I knew he wasn't seeing the same thing I was. All of my efforts would be fruitless to make him see this wasn't my choice, that I never wanted this. So all I could do was smile and hope he saw through it, or that he even saw it at all.

I watched as he lay there, helpless and confused.

"Let me go!" I screamed but my voice was lost in the police sirens roaring in my ear drums and pounding in my head.

I cried and screamed, begging them to let me go. I fought against their grip but it was useless. _I_ was useless. He would die alone in the snow bank,

and all I wanted to do was die with him.

The loud slam of my room's door cut through the voices shouting at me in my mind. I sat on the bed and stared at the blank empty wall in front of me. My fate instantly sealed with the click of the lock on the doorknob.

I was trapped here, helpless and alone yet again.

" _You still have us_." The voices hissed menacingly. I clenched my jaw and struggled to ignore them. I shut my eyes and bit my cheek until I drew blood, and I only noticed when I recoiled at the metallic tasting fluid going down my throat. This wasn't how everything was supposed to be you know. I wasn't supposed to be back here with the bad taste of my own blood and hurt in my mouth.

I looked out the acrylic window by my bed to watch the snowfall. I thought of him and I hoped the snow was treating him kindly. I thought of his smile and his oceans for eyes and I tried not to think about the ache eating away at my decaying heart.

I listened as woman's voice echoed outside of my door.

"His name is Daniel James Howell, yes. He ran away about three months ago. He's claiming he went to see a man named Phillip Lester but there is no record of anybody by that name in the area."

"Yes that's correct." I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, it was only her voice confirming my fears.

"No, no Phillip wasn't real I'm afraid. We believe he made him up, whether it was accidental or not we can't be sure. He seemed positive that Phillip was a real living person, he claimed he could even touch him. He said he loved him." She continued.

I shut my eyes unable to bear it any longer. Her words made me feel small and worthless. As if I wasn't capable of feeling real love. I felt like a child.

Tears gently fell down my cheeks and dribbled down my chin, I furiously wiped them away as the voices shouted incoherently and continuously, they never stopped. Phil was the only person who ever gave me silence.

I stared out that window, the thing separating me from being human and caged animal. When people look at me I know what they see is a monster.

I am _not_ a monster, I am merely plagued by them.

My eyelids began to grow heavy, and with a thousand years of sleep laid upon them, I felt the voices finally take over.

I lost the fight but it's okay. It's okay, because I'm willing to lose if it means I can be with him again.

I didn't feel the scarf around my neck as I tied it back around my throat. It wasn't me feeling it, it was the monsters that had to. They were always the ones that did.

That's possibly the only advantage to living with monsters. You can choose to give up completely and let them take over. You don't even have to pretend to exist anymore, you can just disappear forever.

I could feel Phil fighting for his last breath. My chest constricted along with his, my eyes stung with his tears, and my skin numbed with his cold. I wanted to feel his pain, I deserved it after everything I had done.

I climbed up on the bed and all I saw was the muted snow falling airliy towards the cotton covered grounds below.

Then everything was still. I was back on the trail, Phil curled tightly in my arms.

I looked at the man beneath me with midnight for hair and paper for skin. I let the tempestuous winds cause the snow to rise and fall around us.

For the snow could bother us no longer.

As the roar of the winds quieted, the world around us went silent. As if it wanted to hear what my first words to my love would be.

We sat there as the world went static, all that could be heard was swell of the storm winding its way over our windswept hearts.

I sang to the boy, lying broken in the crimson colored snow. My voice merely a faint whisper as to not shatter his heart in two once more.

"I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats.

With scarves of red tied 'round their throats.

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow,

and I turned 'round and there you go.

And Michael, you would fall,

and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime."  


End file.
